


The Secrets We Keep

by Acaeria



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:59:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acaeria/pseuds/Acaeria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The secrets we keep, the lies we tell, the people we kill, they all add up to the same thing. A life on the edge when every step could mean suicide and every breath could be your last. Where you could fall at any second, and vanish before getting back up. Natasha knows her fate, yet she’s still determined not to become a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story occurred to me when my friend Tasha lent me her Black Widow book, and the majority of it was about Natasha's past. I wanted to write something that was movie-verse, but with some comic elements tied into it. So, this is the result: some movie canon, some comic canon, some stuff from my own head.
> 
> Enjoy~

Prologue

 

 

_Stalingrad, Russia, 1942_

 Framed by flames, Ivan Petrovitch stood tall, seemingly immune to the chaos around him. People were screaming, stumbling from the rubble that their city had been reduced to, shaking and in shock. He looked around, eyes cold and hard.

 In his arms, the infant screamed. He looked down at her coolly, the pink-skinned child with the tufty red hair. “Shh,” he hissed at her. “Тихий, ребенок!” The child only wailed louder.

 He had half a mind to fling her away; let her roast in the flames of a nearby building and be rid of her wailing. Yet the dying yells of her mother haunted him- “Следите за нее! Пожалуйста!”

  _What am I to do_ , he wondered, _With a wailing infant_?

Turning his back on the people and the flames, he strode back to his car, the infant still wailing in his arms.

 

* * *

 

 _The Red Room, Department X, Russia, 1945_  

Ivan Petrovitch sat behind a pane of glass and watched twenty-eight girls, each of them between the ages of three and eight. His face was blank as he watched them, each of them unique, but not for much longer. Each of them would practice the same skills, even go by the same codename. Hair colour wouldn’t mean much for them then.

His gaze flicked between them, from the blonde three-year-old to the five-year-old redhead. Her hair was incredibly red, to the point where Ivan could barely believe it wasn’t dyed. She was quick and lithe, and though not the tallest of the girls, she was easily winning her mock fight.

As the little girl pushed her older foe to the ground, she lifted her head up, as if to allow a non existent breeze to cool her forehead of sweat. For a moment, her eyes met Ivan’s, though that was impossible- the glass between them was only one way.

The girl looked down and stepped back, allowing the older Black Widow to stand.

 

* * *

 

_The Red Room, Department X, Russia, 1950_

The name of the girl Ivan had pulled from the fire all those years ago went by the name of Natalia Romanova, and she was beautiful. Now ten years of age, she was lithe and graceful, used to pain and utterly loyal to her country. 

Young Natalia sat in the chair, not entirely lucid, breathing hard through her nose. The scientists were stabbing at her with needles, cutting into her skin, enhancing her, upgrading her. Ivan stood behind the glass, watching as she squirmed and writhed with pain, lips clamped together so as not to cry out.

 _The poor, poor girls of the Red Room_ , he mused. _Their minds so broken, their bodies so battered, I doubt they’re human at all_.

 And as he turned to leave, Romanova cracked open her eyes, and her gaze seemed to bore into him, and he shivered despite knowing that she couldn’t see him.

Moments later, she went under.

 

* * *

 

_The Red Room, Department X, Russia, 1954_

Ivan was once more behind the glass, eyes on the redhead Natalia Romanova. She was training with the Winter Soldier, by far the USSR’s most vital weapon. Young Natalia kicked and flipped and swung, trying desperately to defeat the long-haired, metal-armed man. He shoved her up against the wall, metal arm against her throat, and only a sharp call from a staff member around the edge of the room prevented him from snapping her neck.

 Natasha sank to the floor, gasping, and her eyes met Ivan’s. He turned away, and felt her gaze burning his back.

“She’s ready,” he told the woman before him. “It’s time to send her out.”

 

 


	2. Chapter One

_New York, USA, 1964_

“This is Madame Natasha.”

Natasha smiled, offering her hand for the Stark man to shake. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she greeted, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes.

“Likewise,” he replied. “I am Howard Stark, and this is my wife, Maria.” Maria was fair and dainty, and as Natasha stepped backwards, she took in the couple as a whole. They seemed to be utterly enamoured, which was good for her, as it made her job so much easier.

“I do hope you’ll enjoy your stay,” Maria commented.

“Thank you,” Natasha responded.

She excused herself after a while of listening to science and petty conversation, relocating herself by the drinks table, forcing a smile, and hoping to be out of the boisterous environment soon.

* * *

 

As a guest of the Starks, Natasha was allowed free reign of the house, excepting the office and the lab. It was late, perhaps one A.M, and Natasha rose from her bed, hair cascading down her bare back. In the bed, Alexei startled, staring at her with wide eyes. “Natalia, любимый, где вы идете?”

“Спать. Я имею работу для делания.” Natasha slipped from the room after pulling on a robe, a gun in her pocket and a knife on her back. She crept through the darkness, headed for the office, and then the lab. Her job was to see what Stark was up to, and eliminate him if necessary.

The office door was locked, but she made quick work of that, and slipped into the office. She pulled the cord on the lamp, illuminating the workspace of the desk, and began to sort through papers. As she did so, her eyes widened in quiet disbelief.

Howard Stark, it seems, was a genius of destructive proportions, and she needed to shut him down.

“Madame Natasha?”

Natasha swung round, pulling the gun from her pocket, pointing it straight at the figure in the doorway, safety off. The figure, the figure of Maria Stark, made a small, shrill, terrified sound, stepping back. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but thought better of it, and instead raised her hands.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I’m the Black Widow,” Natasha responded, the words familiar in her mouth like the poison she’d swallowed daily back at the Red Room. “You won’t live to repeat that.” Maria gasped, tears in her eyes.

“Please, no,” she said, her voice shaking. Natasha was secretly impressed; many of her ‘clients’ were breaking down by this point. “Please, take whatever you want, but you can’t kill me.”

“Why not?” Natasha asked, taking a step forward. Maria took a step back and gasped.

“I’m pregnant,” she confessed. “You wouldn’t kill a helpless child, would you?”

Natasha paused, brief humanity bubbling up within her, humanity that she’d been suppressing for years. Her finger tightened on the trigger. She’d killed pregnant women before; she’d do it again.

 _Don’t_ , a voice whispered in her mind. _Play the waiting game_.

And despite her better reason, Natasha listened to the voice, and her finger loosened on the trigger, the gun falling to her side, safety clicked back on.

“Thank you,” Maria sobbed, “Thank you.”

“I’m taking your husband’s research,” Natasha said. Maria nodded.

“Oh, of course.”

“And wiping his data.”

“Please do.”

“And taking your money.”

“We have more than enough.”

* * *

 

And so, before dawn broke the horizon, the Black Widow and her fiancé were on a plane back to Russia, Stark’s research left to disintegrate in the river below.

* * *

 

_Moscow, Russia, 1967_

“What do you mean he’s dead?” Natasha cried, her arms flailing as she spoke. The soldier looked grave, and maybe slightly afraid, one hand inching towards the gun at his belt.

“I’m sorry, Madame Natasha, but it’s true,” he stammered, his voice shaking. Natasha turned away from him, not wanting to look at the soldier’s face.

“Leave,” she announced, waving her hand. The apartment door closed, and Natasha took several heaving breaths, a noise akin to a sob breaking free from her throat. All of a sudden she screamed, and pulled the ring from her finger, hurling it towards the wall. It bounced off the wallpaper and into a crack in the floorboards, out of sight.

 _This is what you get for becoming attached_ , she told herself scathingly. _He made you weak. Now he is gone, and you can be strong again._

For a moment, she believed it.

* * *

 

_Somewhere in Russia, 1971_

Natasha’s breath came quick, her feet slapping hard against the tiled roof. Darkness surrounded her like a veil, masking her from view by those below. The man she was chasing wouldn’t get much further; she was the Black Widow, after all.

She had a gun in her hand, aimed and ready to fire; it went off too soon as her foot slipped and her fingers tightened instinctively. The man fell, his body sliding limply from the roof, vanishing from her view. As for Natasha? Her foot had fallen through loose tiles, and she was slipping into a darkened room, surrounded by dust and plaster and the noise of her own coughing.

As soon as Natasha could control her breathing, she lay still, eyes straining against the darkness, listening. There was no sound, and after a while, she dared to move, hands running along the walls, searching for- there it was- a lightswitch.

The single bulb flickered to life, illuminating the room.

Natasha’s breath caught in her throat.

Sensations she’d long forgotten returned to her mind; the screaming and groans and grunts and whimpers that had torn from her lips; the hushes and scoldings of the ‘Mothers’; the poking of needles into her flesh and blood; of knives and scalpels cutting her open, altering her skin; of the mind behind the glass who was always watching her with a glint of uneasiness in his dark eyes.

She screamed.

* * *

 

The anguish lasted until daylight filtered through the hole in the roof, and by that time, her memories of the stage and dancing had been torn to pieces, exposed for the lies they were.

The betrayal shouldn’t have hurt, really. She ought to have been used to it by now.

Finally she rose on shaky legs, turned and made her way out of the disused building that had once been her home.

* * *

 

_Department X, Russia, 1971_

Natasha was harder now. Her emotions, her thoughts, her body, she was tougher and stronger and more determined than she’d ever been. She would not be brought down.

Bidding farewell to her apartment had been easy. Leaving Russia behind had been harder. Now, months after her initial discovery, her thoughts organised and her plans thought through, she was ready to take them down.

Well, not completely. She knew well enough that she could not bring down the entire KGB single-handedly, and had no plans to. She probably would not be here at all, if not for two things. The first was the realisation that they would do to others what they had done to her and the other Black Widow agents, and she couldn’t let that happen. The second was the memory of a man she had tentatively tried to bond with in her youth: a man with dark hair and a metal arm, and the most haunted eyes of anyone she had ever seen.

Gritting her teeth, she swung from the roof into the top floor window, and her mission- and the timer- began.

The first few halls were dark, and she navigated them with ease before coming upon the stairs. The dim stairway was lit with flickering lights that were off more than on, and provided cover for her to slink through, headed to the places far below ground.

She was only on the second floor when she bumped into someone, and that someone was actually a group of guards, all of whom froze when they saw her. Natasha did no such thing, and instead pulled her gun from her hip, sending bullets spiralling into the crowd. Several men fell. Some ran.

Others shot back.

Natasha jumped and flipped over the banister, finding herself behind the group of guards and raced as fast as she could down the stairs, ducking bullets and sending others back their way. Hot metal grazed her cheek, the skin set aflame by the contact.

With blood on her face and speed that she hadn’t had before, Natasha raced and shot, ducked and dodged, and finally burst through the level of the floor that she wanted, startling the workers there from their jobs. The white-coats froze and stared, and Natasha blinked before leaping up and grabbing onto a pipe above the door.

The guards burst through the doors, shooting madly, aiming at the doctors, hoping for Natasha but finding their co workers dead instead. With a savage smirk, an odd baring of teeth, Natasha swung downwards, guns spitting out bullets left right and center, until all the guards were dead or long gone, run away with their metaphorical tails between their legs.

Then she dropped onto the floor and rolled into a standing position, weapons ready and body on edge, but none of the survivors dared move. Natasha smirked and walked past them, tearing open the door to the chamber and unlocking the cryofreeze unit with gloved fingers.

The metal-armed man fell forwards, and Natasha caught him, an odd emotion overwhelming her at the feeling of his body against hers. “Зимний Солдат!” she snapped. “Зимний Солдат, проснитесь!” He only sank further in her arms, and she stumbled back, the cool air turning the moisture on her eyelashes to ice. “проснитесь, бог проклинают это!”

He moved, body twitching, eyes opening, fixing on her, expression blank. Her stomach dropped; he didn’t recognise her. But she recognised him, alright- the man she met when she was just eleven years old, who taught her her favourite skills, who fell apart every few months when he returned from missions, requiring her to help pick up his pieces.

“Зимний Солдат, это - меня! Наталия! Помнить?” she cried. “Нам придется добраться здесь!. Оставьте страну, где они не могут найти нас!” He started, licked his lips, watched her face. Then he stood, and nodded.

She grabbed his metal wrist and ran.

With the Winter Soldier at her side, Natasha managed to escape the lab easily, but not before trashing their computers, ripping apart their documents with her teeth. There was blood on her skin and fire in her eyes, and between them they managed to take out at least a hundred men, taking revenge for years of suffering.

Then they were out in the cold night air, and if Natasha had been anyone else, she would have laughed. As it was, she just looked up at the Winter Soldier and nodded.

The two took off into the night.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian Translations:  
> любимый, где вы идете - darling, where are you going?  
> Спать. Я имею работу для делания - sleep. I have a job to do.  
> Зимний Солдат! - Winter Soldier!  
> Зимний Солдат, проснитесь - Winter Soldier, wake up!  
> проснитесь, бог проклинают это! - Wake up, god damn it!  
> Зимний Солдат, это меня- Наталия! Помнить? - Winter Soldier, it's- me! Natalia! Remember me?  
> Нам придется добраться здесь!. Оставьте страну, где они не могут найти нас - We have to get out of here! Leave the country, where they can't find us!


	3. Chapter Two

_San Francisco, USA, 1971_

It had been two months since Natasha had freed the Winter Soldier from his icy prison, and he had slowly begun to remember bits and pieces. They, like Natasha’s own memories, were fragmented and broken, but enough to tell them two things about the person the Soldier had once been. The first was that his name was Bucky; the second that he was American.

It was the latter fact that had convinced Natasha that they should flee to the US, and now here they were, free at long last- albeit cold, worn and hungry. It had been a long few months, with all of Natasha’s ID’s nulled and Bucky’s metal arm.

But that didn’t matter now; they had got here in the end.

Natasha was startled from her light slumber beside Bucky on a park bench by scuffling from overhead. She glanced up, eyes widening as she saw a figure leap between two buildings. And maybe it was her training, or some long-buried curiosity, but something compelled her to follow him: a voice whispering, _Hurry up or you’ll be late!_ like the white rabbit in wonderland.

So she found herself following some red-costumed lunatic to a roof several hundred metres away from her original position, where he spotted her mid-flip and turned to face her. He quirked a smile, raising his eyebrows at her.

“And, you are…?”

“No-one you know,” Natasha responded, an automatic reply.

“Well, you know, normally people introduce themselves before they try to kill me.”

“Yeah? They do that often?”

“All the time, actually.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t piss people off so much.”

“Maybe I’ll try that.”

And Natasha didn’t know why she was doing this, talking to someone she didn’t know so calmly, almost casually, despite the tension in every single cell of her body.

“They call me Daredevil,” the stranger offered.

“Figures,” she commented, glancing him up and down, before back at his face. “They call me the Black Widow.”

“What are you doing here, spider-girl?”

“Running.”

“From what?”

“Home.”

He shrugs. “I guess I can relate to that. Got into some pretty bad stuff, huh?”

“Oh, believe me, I was the bad stuff.” He smirked.

“Well, Black Widow, you gotta place to stay?”

“Why, are you offering yours? That’s incredibly reckless, you know. I could kill you in your sleep.”  
“So could I. What do you say?”

Natasha didn’t falter. “If you let my friend stay too.”

* * *

 

Life fell into a routine, an oddity in Natasha’s scattered life.

She would wake up in the morning, and the others would wake too- metal-armed Bucky and blind-eyed Matt. They would eat breakfast in small talk, or, more often, silence. Then Matt would leave for his job as a lawyer and Bucky would stay in and Natasha would go out and wander the streets, until they returned at night and went out together, hunting crime on the streets of San Francisco.

And it was bizarre, yes, but it was also kind of nice, and the closest Natasha had ever gotten to normal- would ever get to normal- in a long time. She loved that.

She didn’t think she’d ever loved anything before.

* * *

 

_San Francisco, USA, 1973_

It was bizarre to Natasha, how things could change so much. In two short years she’d gone from being a runaway assassin, a fugitive just learning to feel, to… this. A working, breathing, feeling person that enjoyed the life she lived.

Going for runs in the morning air. The coffee from that shop a couple blocks from their apartment. Her job as an amateur fashion designer. Fighting crime with her two best friends under the cover of night.

Being someone else, of her own design this time.

* * *

 

She could hear something.

Wind whipped Natasha’s long hair against her face, the sting of it barely registering. In the distance, her eagle-eyes could see the gleam of moonlight on Bucky’s metal arm; Matt was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he was there. Off doing his crazy stunts, like the madman he was.

She rolled her eyes.

She crouched against the roof, waiting for a second sound to follow the clatter she’d just heard. After a while of straining her senses, she was beginning to attribute the sound to an alleycat, when she heard the low scraping of a body against stone.

At once, she was on her feet, spinning around, the fired bullet missing her by mere centimetres. She heard a muffled curse- a curse in Russian, no less- and located her attacker, over on the next roof, a woman with sharp angles and blonde hair The stranger rose to her feet, a smirk on her face.

“Natalia Romanova!” she called, voice caught in the wind. “Prepare to die!”

Not today, Natasha thought, before jumping away, leaping to the next roof and dodging the bullet. “Дерьмо!” the stranger cursed, and a sense of familiarity washed over Natasha at the voice, but she ignored it. The stranger took off running after her, and Natasha knew that she could probably take her.

So she turned, taking the stranger by surprise, and kicked them in the stomach. The stranger caught her foot, however, and pushed her back, and so their fight began, guns forgotten.

And Natasha had to admit, the stranger was good.

The two of them were almost at a standstill, neither landing any attacks or failing to block. They were both getting tired; Natasha could tell. Finally, as the sky began to lighten, Natasha threw her to the tiles, and kept her down with a foot to the stomach.

“Who are you?” she snarled, glaring down at the stranger, who was writing and struggling. “Who sent you?”

“I am the Black Widow, сука!”

Then she twisted, knocking Natasha off-balance, and disappeared into the morning.

Natasha could only watch her go.

* * *

 

“She said she’s the Black Widow?” Matt asked in confusion. “But Nat, you’re the Black Widow!”

“She must be one of the others,” Natasha said, half to herself. She was pacing the floor of their apartment, thinking. The familiarity of her voice, the way she fought, everything pointed to the stranger being one of the girls from the Red Room.

But if that was true, why couldn’t she remember her?

She began to sift through her memories of the Red Room, throwing away the pale memories of dancing in the ballet and instead focusing on the darker, fleeting ones. The faces and names of her fellow Widows were blurred, lost to her, along with her youth.

A frown crossed her face as she glanced up from the floor and out of the window.

* * *

 

Natasha saw the stranger a lot over the next few months. Sometimes they were only glimpses, a flash of her face amongst the crowd in the bustling streets; other times they were prolonged, framed by the haze of a fight. And sometimes they were neither of those things; a passing in the street or a meeting at a store counter, in which neither spoke in words but rather in looks.

Now she sat on a park bench, her sketches in her lap and her head in her hand. She’d been threatened with unemployment again by her boss; her designs just weren’t selling, and she wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not. It’s not like making dresses was her skill set, after all.

Someone sits on the bench beside her, and she stiffens when she realises it’s the stranger, eating her lunch like she’s a normal person.

“Hello, Natalia,” she greets without looking at Natasha. Natasha doesn’t look at her, either, as she replies,

“Hello.”

“Given up yet?” the stranger asked. Natasha snorted.

“No. Why do you want me dead, anyway?”

“It’s my assignment. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, you know. They sent me to take you out.”

“You can’t kill a Black Widow.”

“Not unless you step on it.”

“Are you insinuating I kill you, Black Widow?”

“What- oh. Right. Silly me.” This last part was sung, accompanied with a laugh. “Come on, Natalia, quit running. Stop fighting. You should have known you couldn’t hide forever.”

Every part of Natasha was tense, stretched taut as she replied, “I’m not hiding. I’m waiting.” Play the waiting game.

“Yeah? For what?”

“Why are you really here, Rooskaya?” The stranger laughed, but the amusement soon turned to bitterness.

“You don’t even know my name, do you? We grew up together, you know.”

“I’d figured that much.”

“My name is Yelena Belova, and I was always second place. No match for the perfect Natalia, oh no. Didn’t matter that I was the youngest girl there, and was better than everyone else; if you couldn’t beat Natalia Romanova, you weren’t anyone.” Her voice slipped from the American accent she’d been pulling into a more Russian one, the words becoming faster and more jumbled.

Natasha still didn’t remember her. She supposes she should feel bad, but she really doesn’t. _This world is no place for her. She doesn’t understand what it means- to be the Black Widow._

“I don’t have time for children,” she said, voice empty, face blank, standing up. “You ought to leave this city, and never return.” She began to walk, yet Yelena had jumped up, racing after her.

“Wait!” she was yelling. “Wait! Natalia Romanova, you will wait!” Natasha slowed her step, turning to the younger girl.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice so flat it was barely a question.

“What do you mean of it? I am not a child!”

“No?” Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “Because you are acting like a child.”

“I am not-” Yelena paused, realising how childish she did sound.

“Go, Yelena. Return to Russia. Stay in the states. Just do one thing for me: stop trying to be me, or beat me, or whatever you’re trying to do. Find out who you are, be your own person. Then, come back and find me, and show me what you made of your life.”

She turned, and without another word, walked away, leaving Yelena staring after her, a feeling of finality in the air.

* * *

 

_San Francisco, USA, 1974_

The streets of San Francisco were probably safe, or so Natasha hoped, as she sat with Bucky and Matt on their apartment roof, a bottle of alcohol between them and the stars above. Fireworks were lighting up the sky, colourful and loud and empty. They held no emotion, no awe or wonder; they were just flat. Natasha wondered whether growing up with the things would have made her any different.

She concluded that any other upbringing would have made her different, and probably a better person.

The alcohol in her veins made it hard to care.

Down below, people were celebrating, kissing on the cheeks and yelling about the new year. They were wishing a happy one, but Natasha didn’t see how anybody’s year could be happy.

Then there were footsteps on the tile and Matt spun around first, followed by the other two. There, framed by the sparks of the fireworks, was Yelena Belova, wearing a dress just like those of the partygoers, hair tied in girlish bows, a grin on her face. Natasha’s hand tightened on her gun. Yelena saw and laughed.

“Hi, Natalia,” she greeted. “I’m back.”  
“I can see that.”

The four of them watched each other for a while, uneasiness in the air.

“I’m not here to kill you,” Yelena said finally. “It’s just- I’ve nowhere to go. You were right, Natalia, but now I’m homeless.”  
“There’s no room-” Matt tried to put in, but Bucky shrugged.

“Let her stay.” Yelena grinned, bouncing on her feet.

“Great!” she said, and Natasha was wary of the chirpy persona she seemed to be sporting. “So, uh, who’s the guy with the metal arm?”

* * *

 

“What are you doing?” Natasha was sat in the window, sketchbook in her lap, trying to come up with some new designs before she got fired. The words of her boss rang in her ears- create some designs that work or find a way to sell your old ones, or you’re out!

Yelena was watching her curiously, the TV turned down low, flashing away in the background.

“Working,” Natasha replied. “I’ve gotta come up with some better designs. Or sell the old ones. Or I’m fired.” Yelena was looking over her shoulder now, nose scrunched up.

“Okay, ew,” she said, in perfect imitation of the Americans they lived amongst. “Where are these old designs? I could help you sell them.”  
“Yeah? How?”

“I met a girl, couple months back- told me that anything can look good on the right person. Seriously, let me help.”

“...Okay.”

* * *

 

Natasha leaned against the door, the barest of smiles on her face. Matt noticed, and frowned at her.

“What’s got you so happy?” he asked.

“Got a promotion,” she responded. His eyebrows disappeared into his hair.

“I thought you were gonna get fired?”

“So did I.”

“I told you!” Yelena said with a laugh. “Didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Natasha said with a faint smile. “Yeah, you did.”

* * *

 

_San Francisco, USA, 1975_

The stars were cold and white, flat and empty above them. Natasha and Yelena sat on the roof of one of the taller buildings, legs dangling over the edge, buffeted by the wind.

“Do you remember it? The Red Room?” Yelena asks. Natasha glances her way, but Yelena’s face betrays nothing. Despite her usual chirpy attitude, Yelena was a Black Widow, and she could be damn elusive if she wanted to be.

“Vaguely.” Natasha tries to piece the fragments together in her mind for the thousandth time, then drops them. “I remember a room full of mirrors. I remember practicing to kill. But I also remember dancing.” Yelena grimaced.

“They washed you into thinking you were a dancer? They washed me into thinking I was an actress. Or they tried to, anyway.”

“What do you mean, tried to?” Natasha’s voice was sharp, the way it became whenever she was curious.

“I could normally see past it after a couple of days. I never said anything though. Didn’t want to end up like you.”

“Like me?”

“You don’t remember? Then again, I’m not surprised. You always saw through the washes and the wipes. You’d start screaming at them, battering with your fists, saying that they were liars and you knew the truth and you wanted to go home, right this instant.” Her chuckle is humourless. “By the time you were ten, you were going through multiple wipes and washes every day, yet you always screamed. We called you the Girl Who Sees. But then one day you stopped screaming, so I guess you were the Girl Who Saw.”

Natasha felt cold, and it wasn’t anything to do with the spring breeze.

* * *

 

When they came, Natasha probably shouldn’t have been surprised, yet she was. She guessed it hadn’t crossed her mind that they’d realise Yelena hadn’t killed her; then again, she hadn’t counted on Yelena’s modelling photos appearing in Russia.

They fought, sure, but Matt was soon down, and Bucky followed not long after. Natasha could only watch as, minutes later, Yelena slipped from the rooftop, mouth open in a silent scream.

Moments later, she was overwhelmed.

* * *

 

_Department X, Russia, 1975_

Natasha woke to pain and confusion, bright lights and hushed voices speaking in Russian. She was strapped down to something- a chair, she realised after a moment. That’s when the panic set in.

She began to fight, arching her back and kicking and clenching her hands into fists. The voices became louder, panicked, yet she was too dazed to discern the words. Only one thing mattered: escape.

Suddenly, her bones shook, her heart skipped a beat, her mind went blank. Her body contorted and then let go, and she found herself unable to move. This happened several more times, and she found herself lying, breath coming in quick, sobbing gasps, with no way to escape.

She opened her eyes and stared into the face of the man behind the glass.

Then her mind began to fizz and break, and consciousness escaped her once more.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian Translations:  
> Дерьмо - Shit  
> сука - bitch


	4. Chapter Three

_Department X, Russia, 1991_

The next sixteen years slipped away, a blur of red blood and the faces of her victims before she killed them. Some were frightened, others laughing. Natasha didn’t care to remember their names.

Finally, she was approached by a superior, who told her- and the other men and women they’d lined up- that things had changed, and they were free to go. Truthfully, Natasha didn’t really know what to do now. She’d never known life outside this system, never spent time not following orders or on missions.

As she walked down the front steps of the building, she was approached by another woman, one with golden hair and wide eyes. “Natalia!” she called. “Natalia, wait!” Natasha slowed to a halt, staring at her blankly.

“Yes?” she said, voice sharp.

“Well, I was wondering- do you wanna maybe go somewhere together? We could go back to San Fran, see what Matt’s up to?”

“Sorry, do I know you?” The words coming from the girl’s mouth made no sense to her. The girl’s face changed from an expression of happiness to one of confusion.

“You don’t remember me?” she asked, disbelieving. “Nasha, it’s me, Yelena?”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Natasha responded. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-” She turned and walked away, leaving the girl- Yelena-behind her, face twisted in horror.

* * *

 

_Arles, France, 1993_

Natasha’s eyes were wide and staring. The face in the mirror didn’t look like her own. Another night, another terror, another scream in her throat.

Her hands were shaking.

She returned to the bed, trying to ignore the week-old corpse on the opposite side.

* * *

 

_Chicago, USA, 1999_

His hands were on the gun, and the gun was aimed at her heart.

His fingers were on the trigger, and the trigger controlled the gun.

His eyes stared into hers.

She stared straight back, daring him to shoot her.

She recognised him, of course.

There were missions, years ago, in which she’d met him. They’d been double-booked a number of times. He probably didn’t remember her, and she was surprised at fate for bringing them together again each time.

She didn’t believe in fate.

His hand loosened on the gun, and he lowered his arm. “I can offer you a second chance,” he said, face unreadable. “Come work for SHIELD.”

“I thought you were here to kill me.”

“I will, if you don’t take the offer.”

Natasha thought for a long, long moment. She considered telling him she’d rather die.

Truth was, she’d rather not.

“Alright,” she agreed, just like that.

* * *

 

_Moscow, Russia, 2009_

“It’s fucking cold,” Clint had complained.

“Welcome to Russia,” she’d replied.

That was the last time she’d seen him.

Now she was stood alone in the darkened room, gun in hand, teeth bared, listening for her assailant. He stepped from the darkness, and her breath caught in her throat. He smiled at her.

“Hello, Natalia.” Alexei Shostakov smiled.

He looked older; hair bleached white, skin wrinkled and back hunched.

Suddenly it all broke; the lies in her mind paled and the realities darkened, and she remembered him, and she remembered Bucky and Matt and- she remembered Yelena. She remembered the seventies and the sixties and suddenly she wants to break something. She wanted to fight, she wanted to scream until her throat bled, but she just stood there, shaking with outrage and betrayal.

He moved forwards, gripped her shoulders, pressed their foreheads together, and she could smell his sour breath as he whispered, “мой Наталия.” Then he kissed her, and Natasha stood stock still, unable to process what was happening fast enough.

When he drew away, nose against hers, she bared her teeth and whispered, “I belong to nobody.” He chuckled, as if she’d just told a joke.

Then there was the unmistakable sound of a gunshot, followed by two more. Alexei jerked; the first bullet caught in his stomach, the second drove it out. The third went straight through him, and into Natasha.

He fell, and Natasha stepped backwards, breath coming in quick gasps, blood blossoming from her stomach. On the other side of the room was Clint, his eyes wide as he stared at her.

“Natasha?”

The world toppled and everything went black.

* * *

 

_SHIELD Headquarters, USA, 2009_

During the long healing process, Natasha remembered, or at least tried to.

She attempted to piece her life together, using the few shards she could find. There wasn’t much. She was born Stalingrad, Russia, 1940- she knew that much. When she was two, her parents were killed, and she was given to the KGB’s Black Widow program, where they pumped her with serum and destroyed her mind. In the 1970’s, she broke free in the 1970’s and fled to America, where she lived with Daredevil, the Winter Soldier, and Yelena, a fellow Black Widow.

Then she was captured again, and, well, the rest wasn’t so hard to figure out.

She remembered a mission from years back; protecting people with Bobbi, as Clint was in medical that week. She remembered the Winter Soldier, sunlight gleaming on his metal arm, the flash of recognition within her that she couldn’t place.

Her fingers found the scar on her stomach, and she thought of Bucky.

Her fingers traced her scars and she attempted not to cry.

* * *

 

“Romanoff.” Natasha nodded to Fury, sat in the seat opposite him, put her feet up on the desk. Nobody else would dare do that. Good thing Natasha wasn’t anybody else. “You have a mission.”

“Yeah?” He said nothing about the feet. If she had been anybody else, he would have.

He slid her a file. “We need you to infiltrate Stark Industries, consider him for the Avengers Initiative.” Natasha glanced at him, and nodded, flicking through the file.

“On it,” she responded.

* * *

 

_Stark Tower, New York, USA, 2010_

Natasha had never seen Tony Stark outside of magazines before, and her first glance made her breath catch in her throat.

Dread pooled in her stomach as a face flashed in her mind.

The terrified face of Maria Stark.

_“I’m pregnant,” she’d said._

Tony Stark’s eyes lit up.

* * *

 

_SHIELD Helicarrier, USA, 2012_

“Do you know what it’s like to be unmade?”

“You know I do.”

* * *

 

_SHIELD Headquarters, USA, 2014_

Natasha was not a hero.

She knew how heroes stories ended; they either got themselves killed or killed themselves. Just like Matt. Just like Alexei (but was he a hero, or a villain?). Just like Stefanya and the other girls in the Red Room.

When she pressed that button ( _“Are you ready for the world see you as you truly are?”_ ), she felt, for a moment, like she could be one.

Then came the fall out.

* * *

 

_Epilogue_

“All my covers are blown. I have to figure out a new one.”

Natasha’s every step was haunted, every thought hesitant, hood pulled up so people wouldn’t recognise her on the street. They could do that now; the elusive Black Widow was no longer so elusive.

There was a strange emptiness to being known, like being naked in the himalayas. Her shattered past, her uncertain future, the path she walked on hidden in shadow, yet open for everyone to see.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to get on the next plane out of here and go home. To Russia. To San Fran. To Bucky, to Matt, to Yelena, to Clint. She wanted to disappear, go somewhere no-one would find her.

She did none of these things. She just kept walking.

Because she was the Black Widow. The Girl Who Sees. _Natalia Romanova_.

(The voice whispered, _play the waiting game_.)

And she would never give up.

  
_FIN_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian Translations:  
> мой Наталия. - My Natalia.
> 
>  
> 
> Hello-  
> I don't think I mentioned, but I've never really read any of the comics, so many of the character's personalities are probably off, and I apologise for that. I've never written for the Avengers before, so this was kind of new for me, and I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.  
> This will be the first in a series, and it serves as an introduction. I could have continued it from here, but the other stories in this series will likely be formatted differently. Plus, I wanted to keep this as in-line with canon as I could, whereas the others will be more of a canon divergence.  
> So, again, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.  
> -Acae

**Author's Note:**

> Russian Translations:  
> Тихий, ребенок! - Quiet, child!  
> Следите за нее! Пожалуйста! - Look after her! Please!


End file.
